February 9, 2011

Someday soon we will share the story of how Ramps for iOS came to be. If you work with Tyler and I at Waggener Edstrom, you’ll likely get a taste of this story sooner than others. For those loyal faithful of you who enjoy our game and our blog, you’ll now get a look at what Ramps looked like after just three days of development.

After Tyler and I first discussed the project, Tyler sent me some art assets he had been saving for a rainy day. Sadly, the right day came without rain and in early August 2010, and rather than go out and play in the sunshine, I found myself pursuing a new addiction: touch gaming.

In our early development days, I was experimenting on both iPhone and iPad with the game engine. Seeing as Tyler and I both love our iPads dearly, there is a great chance we’ll venture back to that device family at some point. You’ll notice that even at this very early juncture, we already had functionality in-place to let you move and rotate ramps, and spawn balls. It just goes to show that the real work is in the details — we spent a tremendous amount of time on polish, creating beautiful menus, animations, and transitions, and fixing bugs from our beta.

Please pardon the jerky camera, as this was originally filmed to show Tyler what I was up to. Also: major brownie points to the first gamer to guess what game my wife Erika is playing while I worked on this. Your hint: listen closely to the background music!